


One Minute

by L_E_D



Category: Original Work
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Mild Blood, Multi, Science Fiction, irresponsible bike driving
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-06
Updated: 2020-06-06
Packaged: 2021-03-04 01:42:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24565588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/L_E_D/pseuds/L_E_D
Summary: How long is one minute?
Comments: 4
Kudos: 5





	One Minute

How long is one minute?

Marcus lets his vision adjust as the whirring of the machine on his wrist winds down and the world stops spinning. He’s on Nelumbo Avenue now. It's busy at this time of night, and the bright city lights always make him dizzy for an instant. He’s assaulted by the strong smell of wet pavement and gasoline, followed by the sound of the cars rushing past him and the wind that follows. He’s frozen, just for a moment. 

One minute is about fifteen breaths and twenty blinks.

A group of rowdy drunks walks behind Marcus and knocks him off the sidewalk. It’s enough to snap him out of his daze. He’s in front of the concert hall, and he needs to get to the next street over: that’s where the bike is. He takes off, ignoring the honking drivers as he makes his way to the next sidewalk. His phone vibrates in his jacket. He doesn’t need to take it out of his pocket to know who it is; as always, he’s late for dinner and, as always, Jeanne is pissed at him for it. He lets it vibrate and speeds up.

One minute is on average one hundred meters walking and two hundred meters running. 

Marcus skids to a stop on Daisy Street and spots the bike. There’s someone trying to get on; he’s late. He sprints forward and knocks the innocent bystander off the bike before climbing on himself, sneakers slipping along the gears. He used to apologize. He doesn’t anymore. There’s a cry of outrage from behind him, but he rides past without a care, confident there are enough people around to help the guy back up. He skips a corner and drives straight through a holographic advertisement, closing his eyes just in time to avoid being blinded.

One minute is how long it takes for seventeen cars to cross the intersection between Marigold and Main Street. 

Marcus dodges through the intersection with practised ease, careful not to anger certain drivers along the way. He narrowly avoids a man distributing religious pamphlets on the sidewalk and moves the handlebar straight before easing off the pedals, letting gravity carry him all the way down Main Street. The brakes screech when he reaches the roundabout at the end of the road. He turns left along it for a moment before turning on Edelweiss, past Stena Park and onto Columbine.

One minute is enough time for the entire Earth to move six million kilometers around the sun.

Marcus reaches the edge of Columbine and jumps off the bike. It rolls on without him. Right there in front of him is the alleyway between an abandoned apartment building and a cheap grocery store. He used to notice the stench of the dumpsters against the walls, the crunch of the broken glass beneath his feet, the buzzing and flickering of the aging street lamps. Now all he can see is Nico. Nico, his childhood friend, in his usual overworn hoody and cheap boots. Nico, with his hair a mess and his tired smile matching his sleepless eyes. Nico, with his back hitting the dirty pavement, his skull shattering against the ground, his face bloody. It never gets easier.

Marcus stops breathing. The device on his wrist beeps; he’s out of time. He glues his eyes shut and braces himself for the nauseating sensations of being brought back. _Next time_ , he tells himself, _next time, I’ll catch you._

Marcus opens his eyes in a daze of city lights, and takes a second to remember. He’s on Nelumbo Avenue. The drunken crowd bumps him off the sidewalk, and he takes off in a rush towards Daisy Street.

For Marcus, this one minute has lasted three days.

He gets there quick enough to beat anyone else to the bike and hops on it as fast as he can. His phone vibrates; he’s late for dinner. He turns left on Marigold through the holographic sign, endures the honking and cursing when he crosses the road on a red light, then turns right on Main, careful to dodge the pamphlet priest. 

Marcus has always been smart. It’s his point of pride, the first thing he mentions when he’s asked to describe himself. It’s never said as a brag, just as a simple fact of life. The sky is blue and Marcus is terribly intelligent. It’s _because_ of his intelligence that there’s a dinner tonight at all. His friends are celebrating his latest breakthrough: a portable way to travel through time. Gone was the era of bulky machines and endless prep. Now, thanks to Marcus’ new prototype, government agents would be able to travel anytime with just the push of a button on their wrists. 

He drifts along the roundabout for a few seconds before getting onto Edelweiss, then makes a sharp turn on Columbine, rushes along Stena Park until the end of the street, stops between the apartments and the grocery store. Nico’s back hits the ground. 

_Beebeep!_

Marcus opens his eyes on Nelumbo, feeling nauseous. He blinks until the bright signs come into focus. He’s pushed off the sidewalk. He runs.

He was on his way to the restaurant when all this started. His prototype proudly attached to his wrist, he'd practically jogged down the road, his step giddy. He was standing on Nelumbo Avenue, admiring the new colourful sign above the concert hall door, when his phone first buzzed. 

That was the last time he heard Nico speak. His voice had been shaky and soft; Marcus had barely been able to hear him over the sound of the cars rolling by. But Nico sounded distressed, and Marcus always wanted to help, so he offered to meet him in person. 

“I’ll see you on Columbine.”

Those were Nico’s final words, not that Marcus knew that at the time. Still, the way they were said rang alarm bells in his head, and his mind kicked in overdrive. He began sprinting down the road, thoughts swirling in a pool of panicked adrenaline. He knew something was wrong. 

He arrived at the alley too late, Nico already on the ground.

Running towards the bike, Marcus remembers that first time, that very first minute. He screamed, he cried, he begged. Nico was in his arms, dead, shattered, impossible to save. In his panic, his bloody fingers had reached over to his wrist, activated his prototype, and Marcus had appeared back on Nelumbo, eyes fixed on the concert hall.

Marcus rides the bike down Main and onto the roundabout, then on Edelweiss, then Columbine, and then Nico lands.

_Beebeep!_

Dizzy on Nelumbo Avenue. Shoved onto the street. Buzz. Sprint to Daisy. Get the bike.

After thousands of attempts, Marcus has gotten the trip from the concert hall to the alley down to a science of microseconds. His latest route is the fastest so far, but evidently isn’t fast enough. He needs to do better.

This time, he twists the bike’s handlebar right when he reaches Marigold. At the end of the street is a dead end, so he turns left on Tansy, then left again on Tarragon. All along the right side of the street is a barren construction site; on the left is nothing but houses for sale. The road is deserted. Tarragon ends back on Main, and he makes it through in record time, the tires marking the asphalt when he takes a sharp turn right to the roundabout. He slips onto Edelweiss, then Columbine and along the park.

Nico falls. And this time, Marcus sees him in the air just a little longer. Progress is so rare that this extra second is enough to make him tear up. 

_Beebeep!_

Lights, push, buzz, Daisy, bike.

Marcus makes a sharp right turn on Marigold. He thinks of Nico. They would always sit in Nico’s dorm room; Marcus fixing wiring on some new machine, Nico sitting on his bed working on three different laptops at once, an ocean of empty energy drink cans at their feet. Marcus would listen with amused patience to Nico’s quiet rants every time his coding crashed, and Nico in turn would bandage Marcus’ hands when he inevitably cut them on the metal between his fingers. 

The bike skids left onto Tansy. Marcus makes the mistake of looking at his hand; there’s some gauze taped to his wrist. He remembers crying out as Nico applied it there to cover up a nasty gash, his sleepy voice teasing Marcus about his whining. He remembers crying out as the gauze turned red from Nico’s head resting in his arms. His vision blurs and he misses the turn on Tarragon.

Instead, the bike drives straight into the construction site. Marcus struggles to maintain control through the dirt and around the few metal structures laying around. He picks up speed as the terrain shifts downwards, the uneven ground making it almost impossible to hold onto the handlebar. 

He’s about to reach the edge of the construction area when he notices the small brick border separating the sidewalk from the site. He barely has time to brace for impact before the front wheel collides with the foot tall wall, sending Marcus flying over it and onto the road. 

Lying flat against the ground, skull throbbing from the hit, he takes a deep breath that feels more like a broken gasp. His ribs scream. His breathing is reduced to nothing more than a wheeze, but he stands nonetheless and wobbles forward. He’s on Cherry Street, on the other side of Stena Park. He can feel that his ribs are broken, his left shoulder is most likely dislocated, and there’s something warm dripping down his chin. But he can see Columbine Street through the trees of the park. He keeps going.

He makes it two steps from Columbine. He isn’t anywhere close to Nico, but there’s blood on the gauze again anyway.

_Beebeep!_

The city lights are blinding, but nothing hurts anymore. Marcus lifts his arm to his eyes and stares at the clean bandage on his wrist. This time, when he’s pushed off the sidewalk, he simply falls to his knees. No one notices.

He should be rushing, but he can’t bring himself to. The clock will reset no matter what, and he needs this minute to pause, just this once. 

He swallows with difficulty, and lets the rush of cars nearby ruffle his hair. He gets a text from Jeanne; he is late, after all. 

His shoulders shake. He loves Nico. He does, he _does_ . And seeing him die is the hardest thing he’s ever done. Seeing him die over and over has broken him. He’s here, racing against the clock as many times as he has to for _him_. Right?

But Marcus also knows that the resets will only stop when he catches Nico. Until he succeeds in stopping his death, the minute will restart. And Marcus will be stuck here, in Nico’s last moments. Forever running full speed through uncaring crowds to a dark alley filled with blood.

Marcus stares up at the concert hall sign, unable to read it through the water in his eyes, and wonders when Nico’s life became a simple byproduct of his freedom.

_Beebeep!_

How long is one minute?

Marcus is snapped out of his daze when a crowd of clumsy drunks push him off the edge of the sidewalk. He sprints across the avenue towards Daisy Street, where he knows there’s a bike waiting for him. He ignores the buzzing in his pocket; he knows he’s late for dinner. 

One minute is about fifteen breaths.

He pushes an innocent man off the bike and rides away without paying any mind to the complaint resonating behind him. He turns left on Tansy, then drives straight through the construction site, gritting his teeth at the strenuous steering. He swiftly dodges the brick border separating him from Cherry Street, the metal wheel screeching when it scrapes the ground. 

One minute is two hundred meters.

Marcus ignores the ache in his knees and pedals forward straight through the park ahead, moving with difficulty around the trees and through the neatly trimmed grass. He arrives on Columbine with mud on his sneakers and scrapes on his arms and legs.

One minute is six million kilometers.

Marcus jumps off the bike right before the grocery store, rushing head first into the alley, hand stretched out. It grazes Nico’s arm, but doesn’t stop his fall. Marcus shuts his eyes and takes a deep breath, bracing himself for the nausea and fighting back tears.

One minute is not enough.

_Beebeep!_

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks Bee <3


End file.
